We introduce a new information-theoretic measure, which we call Public Information Complexity (PIC), as a tool for the study of multi-party computation protocols, and of quantities such as their communication complexity, or the amount of randomness they require in the context of information-theoretic private computations. We are able to use this measure directly in the natural asynchronous message-passing peer-to-peer model and show a number of interesting properties and applications of our new notion: The Public Information Complexity is a lower bound on the Communication Complexity and an upper bound on the Information Complexity; the difference between the Public Information Complexity and the Information Complexity provides a lower bound on the amount of randomness used in a protocol; any communication protocol can be compressed to its Public Information Cost; and an explicit calculation of the zero-error Public Information Complexity of the k -party, n -bit Parity function, where a player outputs the bitwise parity of the inputs. The latter result also establishes that the amount of randomness needed by a private protocol that computes this function is Ω ( n ).
We consider the amount of randomness necessary in information-theoretic private protocols. We prove that at least Ω(log n) random bits are necessary for the t-private computation of the function xor by n players, for any t ≥ 2. In view of the upper bound of O(t2log(n/t))[19], this bound is tight, up to constant factors, for any fixed t. For a class of protocols obeying certain restrictions, we give stronger lower bounds of Ω(t log (n/t)). We note that all known randomness efficient private protocols designed specifically for xor belong to this class. All our lower bounds hold for the "trusted dealer" model as well, and the Ω(t log (n/t)) lower bound for restricted protocols is tight, up to constant factors, for any t ≥ 2 in this model.In comparison, the previous lower bounds on the amount of randomness required by t-private computation of explicit functions did not grow with n for constant values of t, and our results improve the previous lower bounds for xor for any 2 ≤ t = o(log n). Our results also show that already for t = 2, Ω(log n) random bits are necessary, while it is known that for the case of t = 1 a single random bit is sufficient for privately computing xor for any number of players.Our proofs use novel techniques by which we extract random variables from a t-private protocol, and then use the t-privacy property of the protocol to prove properties of these random variables. These properties in turn imply that the number of random bits used by the players is large.
In the private simultaneous message (PSM) setting,
k players obtain inputs
xi∈{0,1}n and then each send messages to a referee, who should learn
f(x1,...,xk) but no other information about
(x1,...,xk). The PSM setting was introduced as a minimal model for secure multiparty computation and has connections to Boolean function complexity. In the quantum setting, PSM has been related to non-local quantum computation (NLQC). The communication and correlation cost of implementing PSM remains poorly understood. Here, we give new upper and lower bounds on the (quantum) PSM model. For lower bounds, we show: 1) Nečiporuk's measure lower bounds the entanglement required for
k-player quantum PSM with perfect correctness. This leads to quadratic lower bounds for explicit functions. 2) The rank of the communication matrix of
f(x1,x2) lower bounds 2-player quantum PSM with perfect privacy but imperfect correctness. This implies a previously unknown lower bound on classical PSM with imperfect correctness. When allowing quantum communication and shared entanglement, these are the first lower bounds on quantum PSM that make use of the privacy condition. For upper bounds, we show: 1) Letting
s be the size of a quantum circuit computing
f,
df be the circuit depth,
k the number of players,
n the number of bits received by each player, and
ε a correctness parameter, we obtain
PSMk∗(f)≤(kn+s)⋅logO(df)(s/ε). 2) The square of the Fourier 1 norm of
f,
∥f^∥12, upper bounds the classical PSM complexity,
PSM(f)≤O(∥f^∥12). In proving the first upper bound, we generalize existing
T-depth based techniques for NLQC from
2 to
k≥2 parties, and consider cases where the Clifford layers are restricted to having small light cones.
We consider the amount of randomness necessary in information-theoretic private protocols. We prove that at least Ω(log n) random bits are necessary for the t-private computation of the function xor by n players, for any t ≥ 2. In view of the upper bound of O(t2log(n/t))[19], this bound is tight, up to constant factors, for any fixed t. For a class of protocols obeying certain restrictions, we give stronger lower bounds of Ω(t log (n/t)). We note that all known randomness efficient private protocols designed specifically for xor belong to this class. All our lower bounds hold for the "trusted dealer" model as well, and the Ω(t log (n/t)) lower bound for restricted protocols is tight, up to constant factors, for any t ≥ 2 in this model.In comparison, the previous lower bounds on the amount of randomness required by t-private computation of explicit functions did not grow with n for constant values of t, and our results improve the previous lower bounds for xor for any 2 ≤ t = o(log n). Our results also show that already for t = 2, Ω(log n) random bits are necessary, while it is known that for the case of t = 1 a single random bit is sufficient for privately computing xor for any number of players.Our proofs use novel techniques by which we extract random variables from a t-private protocol, and then use the t-privacy property of the protocol to prove properties of these random variables. These properties in turn imply that the number of random bits used by the players is large.